MIRNEWS.346                                      22 FEBRUARY 1997
MIR'97:  Dr. Reinhold Ewald amuses himself well on board of the MIR 
spacestation.  His private domain is in the Module
Kristall (T). His American colleague Linenger has his private quarters in the 
Module Spektr (O).  He is sleeping there , has room for personal belongings 
and he found a free surface on the wall to fasten some photographs.  Korzun 
will remain commander  of the complex until his departure on 2.03.1997.
Ewald coordinates the experiments which he has to execute
during this mission with Sigmund Jahn (at TsUP) or with
Hans Schlegel (in GSOC).  From the radiotraffic could be derived that Ewald 
is on schedule with the MIR'97 experimental program. Now and then something 
goes wrong. This was the case with an
experiment planned for 19.02.1997:  In the framework of a medical experiment 
he had to drink 200 ml  tomato-juice with salt, but bad quality of the juice 
made this impossible.  The experiments with the Titus-oven, the French 
Alice-2 installation (studies of the characteristics of liquids), MEDEX  
(medical experiments) and others have been successfully executed thusfar.  
Anniversaries:  On 20.02.1997 Tsibliyev celibrated his 43d
birthday.  Exactly 11 years ago the Baseblok of MIR was launched. (20.02.1986 
OO29 TsUP time; 19.02.1986 2129 UTC)
  
Problems with a gyrodyne:  On the eve of these anniversaries the crew had to 
solve a serious problem.  On 19.02.1997 during the pass in orbit 62876 
(1521-1527UTC)  TsUP gave Korzun data, which had to be loaded in the system 
Svet for the movements control of the complex. Korzun asked what the reason 
was. TsUP informed him that Telemetry had revealed a malfunction of a 
gyrodyne in Kvant-2 (Module-D).  In the evening and night the crews had to 
work hard to eliminate this failure. 
Communications:  Contrary to previous expectations the German GSOC 
Oberpfaffenhofen not very often utilizes the possibility for direct links 
with MIR via the (almost) geostationary Altair-1 (Cosmos-2054). Apart from 
the 143.625 mc,  Ewald  regularly uses the so called UKW-2  (VHF-2) on 
130.165 mc for communications with his
consultants  (Sigmund Jahn) at TsUP and (Hans Schlegel)  in GSOC. Now and 
then Linenger can be heard on that frequency with the American consultative 
group in TsUP .  The 145.800 mc is the downlink ham frequency for Packet 
radio or phone.  Mostly Korzun can be heard here.  A few times Ewald used 
this facility for contacts with German radio-amateurs. He uses the callsign 
DL2MIR.   In the simplex mode he sometimes can be heard on 145.925 mc.  
Chris v.d. Berg, NL-9165/A-UK3202  E-m: cmvdberg@worldaccess.nl
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